Experts: New U.S. Travel Ban Order

News

“President Trump on Sunday issued a new order indefinitely banning almost all travel to the United States from seven countries, including most of the nations covered by his original travel ban, citing threats to national security posed by letting their citizens into the country.” (The New York Times)

Professor Levy is one of the world’s leading libertarian political theorists.
Topics: US constitution, civil liberties, federalism, identity and ethnic politics, immigration, the separation of powers, populism and nationalism, religious freedom, freedom of association, threats to liberal democracy, and truth in politics.

​"Trump’s executive proclamation of 24 September 2017 whereby his administration adds new countries and assessment rules regarding foreign citizens entering the United States have three major consequences:

First, the inclusion of Non-Muslim countries dilutes but does not eliminate First Amendment constitutional challenges based on religious grounds, which potentially could affect the dynamic of the constitutional review regarding the current travel ban (EO-13780) before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Second, this proclamation affirms previous predictions indicating that the Trump’s administration will use the Political Questions Doctrine to restrict migrants from entering the United States, i.e., no branch of government may intervene with the otherwise constitutionally and naturally allocated political decisions of the executive branch (Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 1962). Although this doctrine has proven successful in the past and particularly in relation to national security concerns, the Trump’s administration seems to be adding now a new prong to this equation: “other public-safety reasons,” which propels a differential constitutional review.

Finally, notwithstanding some waivers and exceptions included in this proclamation, the new rules trigger an ineluctable debate in international law between the protection of national security interests and the protection of refugees."—Jose Mauricio Gaona

Topics : International legal scholar expert in the areas of constitutional, immigration, and international law. He recently wrote an op-ed anticipating these and other constitutional changes (e.g., mootness test leading the U.S. Supreme Court to postpone the hearing on the Executive Order 13780).